The Best Quotes From Larry Elder’s The Ten Things You Can’t Say In America

“Many American blacks falsely and unfairly accuse whites for black America’s “plight.” Bad schools? White racism. Crime? White racism. Under performance on standardized tests? racist or “culturally biased” tests. Can’t get a loan for a home or a new business? Racist lending officers, who would rather reject profit than give a black man a loan. Disproportionately high arrest rates? racial profiling by racist cops. To put it more bluntly, many blacks simply despise whites. They assume white bigotry and hostility towards blacks, and feel — against all evidence — that “white racism” remains a formidable obstacle. What nonsense.” — P.1-2

“But it was southern Democrats who formed the line to defend Jim Crow. Georgia governor Lester Maddox famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant. He was a Democrat. Alabama governor George Wallace stood in front of the Alabama schoolhouse in 1963 and thundered, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” He was a Democrat. Birmingham Public Safety commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor sicced dogs and turned fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators. He was a Democrat. In 1954, Orville Faubus tried to prevent the desegregation of a Little Rock public high school. He was a Democrat. President Eisenhower, a Republican, sent in federal troops to prevent violence and enforce a court order desegregating the school. As a percentage of their respective parties, more Republicans voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Art of 1964 than did Democrats. A Republican President, Richard Nixon, not John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson, instituted the first affirmative action program with goals and timetables.” — P.15

“Hate crime legislation forces us to place greater value on some victims because of race. By all means, we should prosecute bad conduct. But if I’m standing at an ATM machine and a Ku Klux Klansman hits me in the back of the head with a brick, the operative word is not “Klansman.” It is “brick.” — P.27

“Twenty-five percent of young black men are in jail, on parole, or on probation. A black man is ten times more likely to rape a white woman than a white man is to rape a black woman. Blacks account for 50 percent of the nation’s prisoners. Gang-bangers are almost inevitably black or Latino. Hurts the image, you know. Don’t think the young white woman in that elevator is oblivious. Don’t think that a white woman living in the city hasn’t seen, experienced, or had friends who experienced crime at the hands of black thugs…If Jesse Jackson himself says he’s relieved when the late-night footsteps on the street behind him belong to white rather than black feet, all bets are off.” — P.42

“Poverty causes crime? According to James Q. Wilson and Richard Hernstein, “During the 1960s, one neighborhood in San Francisco had the lowest income, the highest unemployment rate, the highest proportion of families with incomes under four thousand dollars a year, the least educational attainment, the highest tuberculosis rate, and the highest proportion of substandard housing…that neighborhood was called Chinatown. Yet, in 1965, there were only five persons of Chinese ancestry committed to prison in the entire [emphasis added] state of California.” — P.44

“Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, “The rules used by other ethnic groups don’t apply to you. Forget about “work hard, get an education, posses good values. No, for you, we’ll alter the rules by lowering the standards and expecting less.'” Expect less, get less.” –P.68

“A 1996 study by the Roper Center for the Freedom Forum found that 89 percent of Washington, D.C., journalists voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Contrast this with the 43 percent of Americans who voted for Clinton. How many D.C. journalists voted for George Bush? Seven Percent.” — P.103

“Even the New York Times in an editorial supporting a recent minimum wage hike, said that studies show that “only” as many as a hundred thousand jobs will be destroyed as a result of the minimum wage hike. “Only” a hundred thousand jobs destroyed? When AT&T laid off thousands of workers, this made national headlines. Yet when Congress proposes a bill that, according to the New York Times, may destroy up to a hundred thousand jobs, nothing but yawns.” — P.111

“Reagan served from 1980 to 1988, during a period of explosive job creation and income growth. Despite lowering the top marginal top rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, Ronald Reagan watched tax revenues soar, while the economy created 20 million new jobs. Charitable contributions increased from both individuals and corporations.” — P.121

“In South Carolina George W. Bush soundly beat McCain. McCain’s campaign manager, Mike Murphy, said he intended to regroup. “They [Bush’s people] used their base, the Christian right. So we had every right to use ours, which is the media.” Any questions?” — P.124

“The Family and Medical Leave Act increases the cost of doing business. It makes hiring those likely to use the Family and Medical Leave Act — women — more expensive. It imposes burdens on business people. The law requires an employer to provide leave for family emergencies or other “important” personal matters. The employer must — during the leave — keep the job open and continue to pay health benefits. Many activists think this a good thing, that the businesses recognize the “dual responsibilities” of women and force employers to demonstrate flexibility and sensitivity. But a business exists to make money, not as a device for social engineering. And, given the choice between an equally competent man versus an equally competent woman, shouldn’t a rational boss take into consideration the additional burdens imposed by the law should he hire a woman?” — P.142

“The Heritage Report further showed that children born outside of wedlock were more likely to engage in early sexual activity, and themselves have children out of wedlock. The report further stated, “Compared to children living with both biological parents in similar socioeconomic circumstances, children of never-married mothers exhibit 68 percent more antisocial behavior, 24 percent more headstrong behavior, 33 percent more hyperactive behavior, 78 percent more peer conflict, and 53 percent more dependency. Overall, children of never-married mothers have behavioral problems that scores nearly three times higher than [those of] children raised in comparable intact families.” — P.162

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

“Until the so-called war on poverty, the poverty rate declined steadily. At the turn of the century, nearly 70 percent of Americans were poor, but by the time of the War on Poverty, the rate stood at approximately 13 percent. Then, after generations of declining poverty, the poverty rate more or less flattened out, and has remained so ever since. What happened? Welfare created dependency and deceased the incentive of the welfare recipient.” — P.163

“The 1990 Harvard Medical Practice Study, a non-psychiatric inpatient sample from New York state, suggests that doctors’ negligence kills annually three to five times as many Americans as guns, 100,000 — 150,000 per year. With sad irony it has become vogue for medical politicians to claim that guns, rather than medical negligence, have become a ‘public health emergency.'” — P.178

“People in Canada wait in lines for hip replacements. According to an orthopedic surgeon in Ontario, the wait for an office appointment is four to eight months, and another twelve months to twenty-two months for the surgery.” — P.183

“Sally Pipes, President and CEO of Pacific Research Institute, wrote in Investors Business Daily that she saw billboards on Canadian roads announcing MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING IS COMING, SUMMER 1999. MRI’s came to America, too — 15 years ago!” — P.184

“Canada’s reported percentage of GDP spent on health care is likely understated because of the complex system in which some provinces underwrite a part of the overall price tag. Since that Canadian figure disguises all sorts of hidden costs, the actual percentage of health care-related GDP in Canada may exceed our own!” — P.184

“Joseph Shiner, president of Empower America, points out that more than 80 percent of Americans belong to a volunteer association, and 75 percent of U.S. households report some kind of charitable contribution. Shiner writes, “Americans look even better compared to other leading nations. According to a recent survey, 73 percent of Americans made a charitable contribution in the previous 12 months, as compared to 44 percent of Germans and 43 percent of French citizens, for example. The average sum of donations over twelve months was $851 for Americans, $120 for Germans, and $96 for the French. In addition, 49% of Americans volunteered over the previous twelve months, as compared to 13% of Germans and 19% of the French.” — P.195

“And William H. Peterson of the Heritage Foundation says, “The Great Depression sprang from three fatal mistakes — the fed’s jacking up of money-supply growth in the 1920s, which fueled the stock market boom; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, hiking import duties to their highest level in US history and inviting deadly foreign retaliation against US exports; and the Revenue Act of 1932, hiking the top income tax rate twenty-four percent to sixty-three percent. So, no, the Depression does not represent some colossal “failure” of the market, or “failure” of capitalism. No, government made a bad situation worse.” — P.204

“And, if business people choose not to invest in the inner city, why should taxpayers subsidize them to do so? Sooner or later, property values will decline enough to make it cost-effective for someone to buy and build.” — P.208

“A little history. Congress and the courts repelled the first attempt to impose an income tax, ruling it unconstitutional. Only after state legislatures amended the Constitution, in 1913, did Congress impose the federal income tax. The initial tax rate? One percent. And this was levied only on incomes greater than $20,000 (equivalent to $300,000 today). A maximum rate of 7 percent applied to incomes over $500,000 (equivalent to $7.5 million today). Fast forward — today’s top marginal rate stands at 39 percent with the state, local, and federal government’s take, counting mandates, at nearly 45 to 50 percent — an all-time high.” — P.212-213

“Private schools, contrary to popular belief, are actually cheaper than public schools. Nationwide, we spend approximately six thousand dollars per child, with private school spending a little more than half that. So, taxpayers spend twice the money for an inferior “product.” — P.218

“Still, the federal government, along with several states, now sues tobacco manufacturers to “recoup” costs spent on health care. Never mind that many economists argue that because smokers die sooner than they otherwise would, the taxpayer actually saves money otherwise spent on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. W. Kip Viscusi, a Duke University economist, calculated the societal costs of smoking (medical care, sick leave, life insurance, fire, secondhand smoke, lost taxes on earnings) against societal benefits (nursing home savings, pension, and Social Security saving, excise tax paid). The net result? We gain 58 cents on every pack of cigarettes smoked.” — P.239

“Former Health, Education, and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano, Jr., now heads the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) and Columbia University. He recently released a study labeling Marijuana a “gateway” drug. In the study, most hard-core drug users, he found, start out with marijuana, and that kid who smokes Marijuana before age 12 is 79 times more likely to end up on harder drugs.” — P.255

“Thirty-One states in America allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, nearly all, first requiring both a permit and training. In all, thirty-one states, the murder rate declined. True, most categories of crime in America are declining, but the states that allow citizens the right to carry concealed weapons saw even bigger decreases in homicide.” — P.272

“Former Manhattan assistant district attorney David P. Koppel, who completed a study of gun control for the Cato Institute, cites a 1979-1985 study by the National Crime Survey: “[W]hen a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88% of the time, and the victim is injured 25% of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30%, and the victim injury rate falls to 17%. No other response to a robbery — from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing — produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.” — P.298

“A black friend said that manufacturers conspire to “put” guns in the black community. “Larry, guns, like drugs are brought in from the outside. There’s no gun manufacturer in Compton in Watts.” “Yes,” I said. “And there are no pig farms or egg hatcheries there either. But I had ham and eggs this morning. Grow up.” — P.298

“Three in ten black voters supported the initiative. Booker T. Washington argued that one should make it through hard work and the pursuit of excellence, rather than requesting government handouts. He even eerily predicted the emergence of people like Jesse Jackson, who exaggerate the significance of racism. “There is [a] class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” — P.309-309